


We Soaked Up Water; And Our Tears

by bothromeoandjuliet



Series: Spring Fling Jeronica Week [1]
Category: Archie Comics, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, I had to do so much research about flooding for this, Jughead is tongue tied, Minor Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge, Minor Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Veronica's got a point to prove, but ends in spring, it starts at new years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 17:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17985599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bothromeoandjuliet/pseuds/bothromeoandjuliet
Summary: Betty Cooper is a heartbreaker, Archie Andrews is a jerk, and now both Veronica and Jughead have to go through the New Year alone. Veronica's determined to save face, but after a crisis at La Bonne Nuit she realizes that she just might need someone. And Jughead doesn't mind being needed.





	We Soaked Up Water; And Our Tears

**Author's Note:**

> My first one-shot for Spring Fling Jeronica Week. I'm scrambling to get the other six written, and even if they aren't finished in time, I'll still be uploading them. The prompt is New Beginnings.

 

 

Its twenty minutes to midnight and Veronica Lodge is slapping Archie Andrews. Music floats from the speakers, but it is nowhere near loud enough to cover the sound.

Skin harsh and fast against skin. Fred and Alice’s glasses thudding against the kitchen counter. The clicking of Veronica’s six inch heels and a slamming door that sets the walls quivering. One glass falls over, sticky liquid covering the floor unnoticed.

Nobody follows her.

Its fifteen minutes to midnight and Jughead doesn’t know why he’s there. He hates Cheryl and Reggie, the whole unruly pack of them really. But he couldn’t go to Betty’s party; couldn’t watch her flutter about in her sparkly blue dress and not feel completely gutted.

Because she is absolutely fine without him, and he doesn’t know if he go back to a world where Betty Cooper isn’t in love with him.

He could have stayed home, or just gone to the White Whyrm with the rest of the serpents but he had promised his dad that he would get out of the house and and Jughead has a feeling that his serpent friends are getting rather sick of him moaning on and on about Betty.

Or maybe he just takes a sick delight in being ignored. He doesn’t even know anymore.

Its seven minutes to midnight when Veronica stomps her way into Cheryl’s party. She could go home, but her mom’s hosting a party too. Hosting a party and smiling and sipping champagne and pretending like Hiram Lodge isn’t in jail again, pretending that he doesn’t even exist and Veronica doesn’t think that she can pretend. Not tonight.

So she grabs the closest unopened drink she catches sight of and swallows it much to fast. Theres music here too, but its louder and deeper, so she lets go. Her face is wet and her lips are shaking but her mascara is waterproof and the corner that Veronica is hiding in is dark so no one sees. And even if they do see anything all they think is that Veronica Lodge is pissed and unapproachable; a circumstance that has become more and more likely lately in the world of Riverdale High.

Its one minute to midnight and Jughead and Veronica make eye contact from across the room. They’d both already noticed each other, or maybe they hadn’t, it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Neither moves to the other; voices are bellowing and people are shouting out the countdown and they still don’t move. Eyes staring across what is practically a chasm, never wavering; standing together and yet apart, finding solidarity in their separation.

Its midnight. Shouts of inebriated teenagers erupt into the night and Veronica tosses back a new drink, a nasty smile plastered over her face.

Then she’s spinning on her heel without another glance in his direction; delving deeper into the crowd of people, disappearing. His eyes don’t follow her and a minute after midnight he’s nowhere to be seen, leaving only a screen-door flapping in the wind in his wake.

* * *

 

Snow plies up and winter progresses; probably much the same as it would have if Archie and Betty had still been in their respective lives. Not that Veronica or Jughead would ever admit it.

They wear their heartache like ice around their souls, letting it protect them as much as heartache ever can. Hermione lets Veronica skip out on multiple social gatherings that she probably should be there for; and Pop gives Jughead free meals in exchange for Jughead cleaning out the fryer sometimes.

Jughead hides behind a scowl; Veronica behind a smile. Their brokenness is a shield and it guards them well.

It is February fourteenth and Jughead watches from his booth as Reggie Mantle tries to give Veronica a rose. It's fully bloomed and blood red and matches the ones she’s twisted through her hair.

Three minutes later Reggie leaves the diner with reddening eyes and the echo of Veronica’s apology in his ears. Veronica goes home early; and the rose lies forgotten on the bar-top, wilting in the lukewarm air.

Jughead pays for his meal with a twenty dollar bill and leaves, the rose, devoid of its stem, stuffed inside his wallet. It stays there until March twelfth when Sweet-Pea asks about it. Then it's pushed into one of Jughead’s dresser drawers, hidden under a pair of too tight socks. Jughead could just throw it away, but he doesn’t really want to and he does his best to not wonder why.

* * *

 

Snow transitions to water; grass peaks out it's light brown head from under snow drifts and the students of Riverdale High use enough tissues to kill a small forest. Pop whistles along with newly returned songbirds; buds appear on trees and for the first time in many months Veronica smiles and means it.

Smiling is sort of a freeing sensation so Veronica doesn’t stop. She smiles when her foot is submerged in a pool of water in Pops parking lot, (she really needs to have that pothole fixed this summer,) and she smiles when water drips off the diner’s roof onto her head, and she keeps smiling right up to the moment that she steps into La Bonne Nuit and gets her feet submerged in a half inch of standing water.

Then the smile drops and tears well up and distort Veronica’s vision for a full minute before she shoves them down. Because she hasn’t cried since New Years and she’s not about to start now.

Her phone screen lights up and Veronica tries to think of who to call. Pop is out of town for the weekend to go to his goddaughters wedding, Reggie’s skill of standing in the corner looking like a mix of admiration and heartbreak won’t help in this situation and try as she might, Veronica just can’t make herself ask Mr. Andrews for help. She doesn’t want Archie to hear and think that she’s weak or that she can’t handle things on her own, so instead she decides to take the next best thing.

“Jughead, I need your help.”

* * *

 

He heads to Pops as fast as he can, stopping by the White Whyrm first to pick up a wet vac and some mops, silently blessing the old pipe that had burst last spring and Fred Andrews, for never remembering when he lends people tools. 

A few--well okay, a lot--of people stare as he drives past, looking like they’ve never seen a teenager with cleaning supplies strapped to the back of his motorcycle before, and if he wasn’t so focused on getting to Veronica, Jughead might’ve laughed at their faces. But he is, so he doesn’t.

She’s standing on the basement stairs when he gets there, a nine-hundred dollar pair of Dior heels in one hand and a stack of old towels in the other. Its a strange sight to say the least and Jughead can’t hold back his chuckle.

“You waiting for your knight on shining motorcycle there, Princess?”

“Shut up Jones. I don’t have time for your middle school level humor right now. There's a room full of water soaked wood down there that has your name scribbled all over it.”

“ _Our_ names.” Jughead corrects her as he follows her down the steps, watching in amusement as Veronica balances on her toes in an attempt to keep their height difference as minimal as possible.

Veronica turns on the lights and Jughead sucks his breath in through his teeth.

“How long…”

“Since sometime early this morning. I was here late last night and it was completely dry then, so maybe,” checking the time on her phone “four or five hours? Thats assuming that it started right when I left.”

He nods, eyes scanning the room but he can feel Veronica’s eyes on him.

“Do you think we’ll be able to save it?”

Her voice is quiet and when Jughead turns to look at her, her eyes look entirely to soft and vulnerable for him to find natural. He’s gotten used to the facade that’s been Veronica’s personality for the past few months; so seeing anything legitimate is more then a little disconcerting, maybe even breathtaking. Not that he would ever say that of course.

“Sure. But its gonna cost you.”

“Cost me? What’s it going to cost me?”

He ignores her, instead focusing on plugging in the wet vac, thinking that near electrocution is a hell of a lot less dangerous then Veronica’s soft eyes.

“Do you have a dehumidifier?”

“A what?”

Her tone is confused but Jughead resists the urge to look up at her.

“A dehumidifier. You use it in damp spaces to remove moisture, like in a bathroom or something.”

“My mom might have one…I could go home to see. Unless you need me to do something here.”

Jughead glances over his shoulder, eyes taking in Veronica’s outfit, and scoffs.

“Water cleanup in a designer skirt? Don’t worry Veronica, even I’m not stupid enough to think that you’d ruin your manicure with manual labor.”

He doesn’t miss how her mouth tightens at his words but her eyes are narrowed at him; looking much more like their normal, intense selves.

“Just go on Veronica. I’ll be fine, water vacuuming is more of a one person job any way.”

Jughead’s words fill Veronica’s head all the way back to the Pembrooke. Everyone knows that she hates physical work and teases her about it whenever they can. And normally she couldn’t care less, but for one reason or another, Veronica doesn’t want Jughead to think of her that way. Doesn’t want him to see her as a stuck up princess who just orders people to her bidding.

So after she finds the dehumidifier, (it turns out her mom did have one in the front closet, dusty and practically unopened,) she heads to her closet to change.

A pair of jeans and a white name brand t-shirt later and Veronica is on her way back to Pops. Normally she would rather be caught dead then be seen in anything that could be called even slightly ‘casual’, but today Veronica Lodge has a point to prove and she’s not taking prisoners.

Jughead stands back, looking over his work with a satisfied smile. Most of the water is gone and he’d discovered the cause of the leak; a small crack in the wall that had allowed the melting snow to seep through. An easily solved problem, nothing that a little plaster and a little bit of paint couldn’t fix.

He heard footsteps above his head and grabbing one of the old towels, began soaking up residual water. The last thing he wanted was for Veronica to find him standing there not doing anything.

“Jughead?”

Sounds of her feet on the stairs and then her voice, clearer then before,

“This looks a lot better!”

“Yeah I think its gonna turn out wel-“ He looked up from his towel and his sentence breaks off; fractured and sharp on his tongue.

Veronica didn’t wear jeans; had never worn jeans in the entirety of his friendship with her; and yet there she stood. She looked like someone who he could eat pizza with in his trailer; it was strange and wrong and…

And Jughead had never seen something that looked so wrong but felt so right in his entire life. Veronica shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

“Why don’t you just take a picture Jughead? That way you can stare at it awkwardly on your own time and I can get to work.”

Grabbing a towel, she crouched down across from him, mimicking the wiping and dabbing that he had been doing when she’d first come in.

“Sorry Veronica, I…I’m just surprised you’re wearing jeans. I didn’t even think that you owned any.”

“You thought I didn’t own jeans? Please Jughead, if I didn’t own jeans what would I wear for comfortable clothes?”

Jughead shrugs; continuing to wipe up water, and suddenly remembers the dried out rose in his dresser drawer. And then he tries to think about nothing at all.

Hours tick past and the silence stretches on. Veronica’s lips part and then close more then once, and Jughead feels words kicking at the backs of his teeth, but the silence hangs about them comfortably. As if they can both hear something being built in the quiet.

Their breathing echos through the air and by the time all the water has disappeared from the naked eye and Veronica is plugging in the dehumidifier; their fingertips are pruned and pale. They compare their prunes and Veronica’s heart stops because Jughead laughs, pure and ringing in her ears. And Jughead is laughing because she looking at him with those soft eyes again and he’s not sure what he should do. Only then his stomach growls and he knows exactly.

“You ready to pay up now Princess?”

“Sure!” she snorts “But you never told me what I’d have to pay.”

“Well it is dinner time and I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast; so what so you think?”

“Why am I not even a little surprised.” eyes rolling upwards in her head “Thats one burger, a serving of fries and a chocolate milkshake for Jughead Jones the third.”

Her back is fully turned to him and his teeth grind against each other. Because he knows that this is it; what he about to do is going to change his world in one way or another. Its a scary thought, but the thought of not doing it is scarier. So he holds his breath and grabs her hand.

“Make that two burgers and a double serving of onion rings!” Jughead looks down at her, allowing himself to smirk at Veronica’s shocked face and the fact that she hasn’t pulled her hand away from his to sock him in the face yet.

“We can share the milkshake though.”

And so that night Jughead Jones the third and Veronica Lodge sit across from one another in a booth at Pops, eating burgers and smiling, because after far too long a time, they had finally found each other.


End file.
